From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 13:58:57 MST
Michael Dickey wrote to Kai:
> I understand how your close proximity to this event could give you a
> particular point of view on it. But again, what about the 3 million
> people who are dying every year right now? What if they lived right
> next door to you? What if these 3 million people were everyone you
> knew, and everyone they knew? Will their families feel consoled by
> your concern about the vegatables being destroyed in Munich?
>
### I was even closer to Chernobyl when it happened - in southeastern
Poland. While of course I was angry at the communist regime for trying to
stall with informing the public, and I was appalled by the sloppiness shown
by Russians, I also know that most, if not all, of the "losses" of
agricultural produce outside Russia were due to ill-informed scaremongering,
rather than rational assessment of the situation. The amount of fallout was
minimal, well below level which can produce measurable health effects, most
of it in the form of short-lived isotopes, and therefore amenable to a
quarantine. The hysteria was fanned by the EU farmers, who saw imports from
the East as competition to their outrageously overpriced, heavily subsidized
produce.
This said, nuclear power plants in the heavily populated Western Europe
would act as a force multiplier for any attacker or terrorist smart enough
to blow them up, so European reticence about placing them in (almost
literally) their backyards, is somewhat understandable.
Rafal
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